Cleaning Closets After Chemo

Unlike so many people who were blessed with losing weight during chemo, I gained weight. The combination of the steroids, eating whatever felt nurturing (which during chemo was mashed potatoes with butter and cream at least three nights a week), and exercising whenever I could keep my wig on, kept me swollen and plump during my six months of chemo cocktails.

After chemo came the celebration of being cancer-free, followed by a twin pregnancy, where I think people would often mistake me for the “Great Pumpkin” and then a really fit post-pregnancy body. I tend toward the “pack rat” side and anyone who knows anything about “energy work” will tell you that holding on to things helps you hold on the pounds, the past, and stagnates your “chi.”

So, after each and every event I attempted to clean my closet, but, alas, I needed support for this. Could I give away my pregnancy wardrobe when I wasn’t planning to have any more children? A resounding “no” my inner recycling, don’t-waste-just-in-case mouth said. What about my daughter’s baby clothes? I better keep at least all the nice ones (which were all of them) as a back-up. Have I mentioned I do not excel at closet cleaning?

My best friend usually flies down from Northern California to help me with my little problem, although with four kids and a full house of dogs, snakes, hamsters, and the entire neighborhood’s children, I felt selfish asking since she had also attended each and every one of my chemotherapy sessions and has countless better things to do.

I attempted to clean my closets alone for the last seven years. Some people have two sizes in their wardrobe, but I had five. I had my pre-chemo clothes, my chemo clothes, my post chemo clothes, my pregnancy clothes, my post-pregnancy clothes, my post surgery clothes, etc. It was quite an assortment. I tuned into my favorite part of giving away things, which is finding a good home for them. Many things went lovingly outside my front door that others would enjoy and get much more use out of than me. The old suits (were they really from the 80s?) went to working, battered women. Children’s clothes scurried off to friends with baby girls on the way. My daughter cleaned out some clothes and toys to ship to Africa for two children her class supports via donations. Strangely enough, the wigs were hard to give away. First of all, they were expensive, second, what if I need a good gag for a Halloween party? I tried to pretend like being a young, single bald woman wasn’t especially traumatic back then – that what was most important was that I lived. But in retrospect, it really was difficult to be 36 and bald.

While I still could probably find a few things I don’t need, I feel wonderful, lighter, happier and truly “unstuck” (I don’t really know if I was stuck before, but I definitely feel the opposite of that now)! It also feels like putting breast cancer in its true place – the past where it belongs.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Suzette Lipscomb

Suzette Lipscomb has done the cancer dance twice in her young life. Originally diagnosed with an aggressive form of invasive ductal breast cancer at 36, she endured six long months of chemotherapy and then...read more

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